Terror attack or terrorism? Media struggles with words in wake of Boston bombing

While TV anchors widely used the word "terror" to describe the Boston bombings on Monday, the White House conspicuously avoided the term "terrorism" until the day after the bombings.

Appearing before reporters on Tuesday, President Obama said the events in Boston are being investigated by the FBI as "an act of terrorism."

When bombs are used to attack innocent civilians, it is a terrorist act, he said. "Whether it was planned and executed act by a terrorist organization -- foreign or domestic -- or was the act a malevolent individual? That's what we don't yet know."

The word is loaded and some argue that the media use the term too frequently, others say not enough.

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Most TV reporters used the term "terror attack" on the air Monday but stopped short of classifying the event as "terrorism."

One exception was David Abel of the Boston Globe, who told NBC's Brian Williams that people at the marathon's finish line "knew immediately, like when the plane hit the second tower of the World Trade Center, that this was premeditated, this was a terrorist attack."

The title of NBC's Monday primetime report neatly sidestepped the debate: "Terror in Boston."

One network executive who declined to speak on the record said, "the use of the word 'terror' is an accurate description of what people feel at a time like this. 'Terrorism' connotes some ideological reason behind the act and we don't know that at this time."

There was no doubt that people were terrorized Monday, but was it terrorism?

Author Bruce Hoffman, an authority on terrorism at Georgetown University, blames the media for the public's throwing the word around. In his 1998 book "Inside Terrorism" he wrote, "This imprecision has been abetted partly by the modern media, whose efforts to communicate an often complex and convoluted message in the briefest amount of airtime or print space possible have led to the promiscuous labeling of a range of violent acts as 'terrorism.' "

How did the networks determine the terminology with reference to the Boston bombings?

One network called it a terror attack because, a spokeswoman said, there was more than one device, the devices contained shrapnel, the devices were targeted, and there were multiple casualties.

"CBS News does not publicly discuss its editorial decision making process," said spokesperson Sonya McNair.

Another network called it a terror attack because, a spokesperson said, there was more than one device, the devices contained shrapnel, the devices were targeted, and there were multiple casualties.

CNN anchor Erin Burnett told the audience Monday that CNN contributor Tom Fuentes, former assistant director of the FBI, "said that this was a coordinated, preplanned, multiple explosive device event and that is a terrorist attack no matter how you consider it."

Former Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer was puzzled by the wording. He told CNN, "one incongruity that I don't understand is why the (White House) staff is calling it terrorism and the president isn't. They should be in sync."

"'Terror' is an emotion, expressing shock, horror and disgust at something that causes fear and anxiety," Georgetown's Hoffman said by email Tuesday. "'Terror-ism' is a political act, violence undertaken for its effects on some target audience where the victims are a critical means to that end.

"Horrific acts of violence such as yesterday's event certainly evoke terror -- headlines and news reports about limbs ripped from torsos and blood-stained streets are effective in generating such an action. Until we know the perpetrator and motive and perhaps are provided with an explanation for the incident, it is difficult to conclusively label some violent event as an act of terrorism -- the 'ism' encapsulating the intrinsic political dimension of the violence."

Even as counter-terrorism experts were debriefed across the TV networks Monday, the Obama administration urged citizens not to jump to conclusions.

Hoffman suggested there were political reasons for this reticence.

"For an administration that has argued that we have turned a decisive corner in the war on terrorism, and that we can now put the past decade's preoccupation with security and warfare behind us so that we can focus on more pressing domestic challenges, something that is terrorism is an undesirable distraction from 'terror,' which may be simply a spasmodic, one-off event."

Hoffman added, "There's no administration in the world that ever welcomes dealing with any kind of terrorism problem -- so their caution is understandable and not atypical."